ramblings of an entrepreneurial madman

I know I haven’t been posting a lot lately but in all seriousness, it’s because nothing has happened that’s worth mentioning. I keep looking forward to that post I’m going to make when i earn my first million, but that’s a good year or so away.

Right now we are moving forward and have closed 2 deals, and are working on more. The problem is that the deals are falling much too slowly, so we need to get our marketing figured out asap. The good news is that we are in communication with a real estate agent in Las Vegas, who happens to be a heavy hitter and she’s extremely excited about what we are doing/offering. She said she can refer us a lot of business and we are hoping that she helps us get over this hump. I have a conference call scheduled with her this week.

Our own marketing efforts continue to fall short but we are committed to this and not going to give up. There is simply too much money at stake. We can make a boatload just bringing in a little bit of business, but the astronomical money will come if we can iron this thing out and bring in 50-100 deals a month.

I’m super excited because 2012 is really going to be a great year, but I’m also anxious because things are not working out as quickly as I had hoped. I want to hit the ground running in January and don’t want to waste any time still trying to figure shit out. We need to have 500 deals on the books before the end of 2012, that is a MUST! I figure we have 12-24 months before people start doing what we are doing and the competition starts to really get saturated. I’d like to have 1,000-2,000 deals on our books before that happens.

Anyways, I’m looking forward to 2012 and this holiday season will be a laid back one. It’s been a long ass time since I’ve been financially stable during the holidays and doing alright. I was actually able to buy myself some Christmas gifts, which I haven’t done in years!

I’m going to enjoy this down time because int he New Year it’s on!

I’ll probably make another post before the end of the month but I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season.

Like this:

I seriously have nothing to talk about. Every weekend I rent movies from Redbox because I’m too broke to go out anywhere, and aside from working and going to the gym; I never leave my apartment. Sounds fun huh?

On a brighter note, I started closing deals last week and am expecting more this upcoming week. I’m motivated to make money because I fucking have too, and because it’s necessary in order to convince the owners of the company I know what the fuck I’m doing and what I’m talking about. They will not accept any proposal from me unless I show I can produce some business first. The same goes for my business partner.

I met with him yesterday for a cup of coffee and there was a week or so when I was really upset at him and myself. The main reason being that we didn’t seem to have any set direction or plan. We were simply employee’s working for some company and we lost sight of our ultimate goal/vision; which is to become our own separate sales and marketing entity that sends them business. After our meeting yesterday I feel as though we’re back on track.

We opted to put the affiliate network on hold and are attempting another marketing test this week which will hopefully generate good quality leads. As of right now we need to be able to generate our own leads effectively so that we can show; “75% of my deals came from my own generated leads, not the companies. We need to talk about my commission.”

First step is production both on my end as well as my business partners; in conjunction with lead generation. When we have those 2 pieces of the puzzle we can move forward with our plan. Hopefully this new thing we’re trying shows some results quickly.

After closing my first few deals it’s apparent to me that there is a ton of money to be made in this but the commission is definitely too low. Also, the company doesn’t seem to have the ability to produce enough leads for me to make a lot of money. They will produce enough to earn a decent living, but not enough to earn 500k-1mil a year. I’m going to have to figure that out on my own.

Updates to come, but I’ve been busy working and not much has happened. I will say that I’m on the right path, it’s just a matter of whether this path leads me to millions a year or to 100k a year. I’m going to do my damn best to steer it towards the millions but there are few factors that are out of my control.

My business partner is pretty much broke right now. He was expecting several more checks from his previous job and although he is still receiving them, the amount turned out to be only a couple hundred bucks instead of a couple of thousand. This was the money he was planning on using to fund our new method for lead generation but since he doesn’t have money for it anymore, we had to put everything on hold.

Initially, we had a training class scheduled for this upcoming Saturday, but since we have no way of paying these new reps, we had to postpone it until we can figure out what the hell we are going to do. I’m flat broke until I get my grandmother’s inheritance, and I was told I should expect it around October 15th, but I won’t be surprised if I don’t get it until sometime in November.

So this whole situation has pretty much left us as a stalemate. I’ve been calling our existing leads and doing what I can to close deals, but until we start generating our own leads I don’t see us making any real money. On top of it all, once we start closing deals, we don’t get paid on them until 4-6 weeks later so there is going to be a long wait before the cash flow starts coming in.

Lack of capital is our biggest problem right now.

I’ve also been looking over the figures and it’s still in question exactly how much money we can make doing this. For 7-10k a month, I’ll save enough so I’ll be ok for awhile, but eventually we’re going to have to renegotiate our contract with the company we are partnered with. My time is much more valuable then 10k a month and for all the work and effort I’ve put in, I don’t see myself continuing to do this for that type of money.

I’ll make that decision when we come to it, but right now we just need to close deals and at least make something from this whole mess so it’s not considered a complete loss. I know we can make money and close deals, but now it’s a matter of how much money can we make, and is it really worth our time and effort?

Remember, you set your own worth. If you worked for a company for 15 years and never asked for a raise, I guarantee they would be more than happy to continue paying you the same salary as the day you started. You need to go out and get what you want, because it will never be given to you.

I know what I’m worth, and given our current arrangement, I don’t think I can earn it doing this.

Like this:

This is going to be a week of hell simply because I won’t have shit to do until we train this new group of people on Saturday. My business partner is actually in California for the week, and I guess he is more strapped financially then he anticipated. He was the one that was supposed to have the money to fund this thing but it’s looking like he doesn’t really have shit. I’m flat broke right now and won’t have money until I get my grandmothers inheritance. I will be able to invest some money in this thing once I get the money, but I don’t like the idea of investing all of it because that money was supposed to be my living expenses for the next 5 or so months while we got this thing going.

The good news is that he can afford to pay marketing reps to generate anywhere from 50-100 leads for us, and from that sample we should be able to get a good idea of how well these leads are going to convert. From that point forward, pumping additional money into this thing won’t be much of a risk. We will know after that first sample whether or not this method of doing business is going to work, and I’m extremely confident it will.

My business partner called me before he left for California this weekend and he seemed stressed and down about the whole situation and said he needed to make some damn money. To be honest, I’m kind of happy because I think now he will be more motivated than ever to bring in business. When someone doesn’t really need money, it’s hard to motivate them to earn more. Right now, he needs it bad, so he will bust his ass to get it.

I still feel great but if I wasn’t getting that cash from my grandmother I’d be freaking out right now. I know its coming and I just have to be smart with my expenses until that point.

Our existing sales reps are completely worthless and we are just letting them fade away from this point forward. There is no point in either of us wasting any time on them when they lack the ability to close their own deals. The closings with these deals are the easiest part, and if you can’t close you are better off doing something else.

It would be nice to get some 5-10k monthly earnings by the end of the year, and I would love to plan a long weekend trip to California before 2011 if possible. It all just depends on how quickly this thing takes off.

If we can get it to 10k a month, I’m confident we can get it to 20k a month without many issues. From there it will be a little more difficult to get it to 30-50k a month, but I still think it can be done.

I went to Walmart during my lunch break to pick up some miscellaneous shit I’ve been putting off for like a month now. I needed a picture frame for the longest time so I could hang my business license in my office. It’s supposed to be “conspicuously” displayed so that if someone comes by to check to see if your shit is legit, they can see it easily. For the last year that I’ve been in business that shit has been sitting on my refrigerator in my office, constantly getting blow off onto the floor by the air conditioning vent. Every morning I would get to work and pick that shit up off the floor and put it back on my fridge, and today I finally broke down and hung that shit up, LOL.

Anyways, it looks good. Professional and whatnot…

Walmart is fucking crazy though. That place is like a damn circus. Every time I go there it’s absolutely packed. It could be fucking 2am and that shit will be bumpin! I don’t get it. Btw, I got an interesting psychological experiment for you. Next time you go to Walmart, check and see if they have baskets easily accessible. The Super Walmart by my office doesn’t even have baskets. You can only get a cart. I think they set that shit up that way because if someone is going there just to pick up a couple of things, they will feel weird having 2 or 3 items in that large shopping cart, forcing them subconsciously to purchase more shit, so their cart appears more “full.”

Or maybe I’m just fucking crazy?

So work went well, and I ended up closing that 1 deal I wanted to close today, so I finished my week off with 3 deals. Leads start up again next week and I’m feeling good. Left the office and came back to my apartment and some motherfucker in a minivan parked in my damn parking spot! The nerve on this son of a bitch!

I brushed it off at first because I was only stopping by the change quick and to grab a bite to eat before heading out again to go to the gym. So I went to the gym and worked out and came back and that motherfucker was still in my spot!

I was thinking at first that maybe he just parked in my spot real quick because he had to run in and grab something and would be out right away, but obviously that wasn’t the case.

Now if I wanted to be an asshole I could have had his shit towed, but I figured I’d be mature about the shit. I put a post-it on his windshield.

Now I’m home heating up some leftover chicken and I’ll watch some TV and hit the sack. Got to love my crazy life right?!

I’m looking forward to tomorrow and next week. Tomorrow I’m going to make a big pot of my pasta sauce because I’m out and that shit is bomb. Takes all day to cook, but once its ready it tastes fucking incredible. Also not sure if I’m going to kick it by the pool or not; it just depends on my mood when I wake up.